The answers to those questions are actually quite simple and brief; although achieving an appreciation and understanding of their response is often somewhat more elusive.

Question: Where did all the information go? Answer: Much was destroyed or lost, never to be recovered.

Question: Was the information moved to some safe place? Answer: The truth is there were few, if any safe places. Early ‘on the eve of destruction‘, many ‘crucial’ records/documents were moved to safe places. But once those ‘days of destruction’ truly arrived, even most of those safe places were destroyed. By then, there was no time left for documents, possessions, or things. If you were lucky, it was simply a ‘run’ for your life.

Sadly, too many people today have no real appreciation or concept about what the world was like for their European families in the years between 1939 and 1950. In order to provide a bit of insight without making any attempt to be political, I have gathered a number of YouTube links to help you visualize that world. I will leave you to mull over & establish your own conclusions in terms of the politics and moralities of those circumstances and times. Also, I will not approve any political or otherwise incendiary discussion or comments here.

The purpose of this page is to simply present visual (video) images of those times, places, world. Hopefully when you have had a small peek into the window of that time & place, you will be able to better appreciate why so many records have ‘gone missing’.

Rather than having the YouTube video images appear here, I have simply made them available via hyper-link so that you might more readily pick and choose those videos of most interest to you.

One thing that was hard for me to get a handle on was when I asked the priest in Kleinneuhausen what the gravestones said about my ancestors & he replied that there are no stones. During the time of the East German Republic, they used them all as paving stones! That’s how hard up they were. I feel very fortunate that the church records have survived intact.

It can also be that records that seem to have survived, did not do so completely, even here in the US. Could not find my German great grandfather’s immigration in the Germans to America series. Fortunately, he waited quite a few years before submitting his Declaration of Intention to Become Naturalized when more questions were being asked. And, the New Jersey county where he did this, indexed those records and put the images online a few years ago. There was his recollection of his ship’s name and date of arrival. When I looked for the ship manifest on microfilm at the National Archives, I did, indeed find that ship arriving on the date he reported. But the many pages of the passenger list had been folded several times and the paper was lost along those folds on many of the sheets. Each fold lost several names per sheet. His Declaration of Intention also had his birthplace, birth date and physical description.

Cynthia10 June, 2015 @ 10:44 am

On the other hand, the most common misconception related to Polish genealogy that I hear is that “all the records were destroyed, so why should I bother to research.” There are church records for a small town in central Poland going back to 1593 for one branch of my family. Most people with Polish Christian ancestry, but not all, are generally able to find records going back to the late 1700s. I always tell people, you don’t know what you’ll find until you look.

I have found over time some perhaps many, records do come to light, as for example the Jerichow Kreis Sippenamt Kartei which was found in a belfry just a few years ago. They used kataster maps, hypotheken Bucher, church and civil records and court records to gather the information that Hitler required them to organize. As a result of this find I have gone way past the earliest church records in some of these places. This is a great source. And a wonderful source of birth, marriage death and family lineage collections.

Sonja… would you mind sharing those links with our readers? Yes, a lot of creativity and luck can certainly help move things forward. Basically that is what I have tried to accomplish with the Search Engines I constructed.

Roger Lustig20 June, 2015 @ 8:37 am

There were indeed “safe places”–after the war. Most notable, perhaps, is the Standesamt 1a in Berlin, which houses thousands of 2nd copies of vital registers from territories no longer in Germany. The Lutheran church archive in Berlin

Even before the war, some “safety” was ensured by the Nazis’ abortive attempt to film all church registers. The effort began in several states, including Silesia and West Prussia, but was abandoned after it became clear that the number of records was greater by at least a factor of 10 than had been estimated. LDS has copies of these films, which are owned by the Saxony State Archive.

Roger Lustig20 June, 2015 @ 8:45 am

“Why is it so hard to find genealogy information in the areas of Prussia, Poland and Germany?” Odd question, because the problem is often in dealing with the overwhelming amounts of information available.

Almost all of present-day Germany’s vital registers from 1874 onward have survived in one form or another. Same for the vital registers kept since Napoleonic times in the parts of Germany west of the Rhine. Hessen has put many of the duplicate copies of its post-1874 registers on line. All the duplicate copies of Baden’s church/synagogue records for 1810-1870 are also on line.

For the rest, the problem is generally not unavailability, but where to find them. Each state has its own laws about where the duplicates (and older originals) go; and the different regional churches have their own archives, etc.

You are correct the records are in a jumble… and do not always appear in the area(s) they used to reside / represent. However there are also vast areas for which few if any records survive. Areas around Koeslin/ Stolp have very nearly a zero record survival. If you are interested (and have not yet seen) I provided a document discussing the location of major Prussian archives/repositories. It may be view at: http://www.many-roads.com/libraries/prussia-histories/records-possibilities/

Roger Lustig20 June, 2015 @ 10:49 am

Thanks for your link to the other post, which I hadn’t found yet.

Koeslin and Stolp are in Farther Pomerania, where indeed there was a great loss of church records. In fact, the Jewish records from 1812 onward are far better preserved in one way or another. Stolp is especially hard-hit, as most of the civil registers (ca. 1881-1937) are lost too. (Those for Koeslin are intact up to 1943.)

I guess we have different ideas of “vast areas.” I’m constantly surprised by how much *is* there. Perhaps I’ve been lucky.

For your German-records page, I know you’re not trying to list everything, but the Meckenburg-Vorpommern archive in Greifswald has substantial holdings from the east, not all of which have been filmed. Amazing stuff from Flatow/WPr., for instance.

Hi Roger. Yes I agree. I seem to be often a ‘last resort’ for many people. Because of that, I often have to contend with the areas where the damage was most severe, in terms of record loss. As for Greifswald I had read a while ago that they have some 75m worth of church records, unopened. I sent that info to the LDS in hopes that the LDS might get film crews there ‘quickly’. Who knows? But, I hope.

Michael18 September, 2015 @ 5:44 am

Hello. I am looking for the birth certificate of my grandfather who was born on 22 October 1913 in Sophienwalde province, Brandenburg, Prussia. The polish government says that they do not have a record, and I contacted several state archives myself, as well as some centralized Lutheran archives in Berlin. Same answer. Would anyone have anywhere tips on where to look?